MSS: Don Kimble

Feb. 7, 2012: MICHIGAN Lakeshore head coach Don Kimble joins the Morning Swim Show. Kimble talks about some of his history as a longtime coach as well as some of his more recent success including Courtney Bartholomew.

(Note: This is an automated service where some typos and grammatical errors may occur.)

Peter Busch: This is the Morning Swim Show for Tuesday, February 7th, 2012. I'm your host Peter Busch in the FINIS Monitor today we talked to Don Kimble. He is the Head Swim Coach at Michigan Lakeshore Aquatics. They are having their most successful season ever. They just finished third at the recent Junior Nationals. Don Kimble joins us right now in the FINIS Monitor from Holland Michigan. Coach, welcome to the Morning Swim Show, how are you?

Don Kimble: Very good, thank you very much.

Peter: Where is Holland Michigan?

Don: We are right on Lake Michigan. We are about 30 or 40 miles west of Grand Rapids, Michigan so in the middle of the state, but we are right on the lake.

Peter: Now speaking of Holland you coached the Holland High School Swim Team also as well right?

Don: Correct, yeah, I coached both the high school boys and girls.

Peter: And your girls just won the state championship?

Don: Yeah, after finishing three years runner up. We finally got the job done.

Peter: Congratulations to them and how about the boys?

Don: The boys right now are ranked fourth in the state. We have a pretty young team. They are just trying to match up with the speed the girls had at the end of the year.

Peter: Well, if that doesn't motivate them I don't know what will?

Don: Yeah I have been using it as a piece for the puzzle.

Peter: So they have it— they swim in different seasons then, the guys and the girls?

Don: Correct, yeah the girls swim in the fall and the guys swim on winter season.

Peter: Well aside from just winning the State Championship which is pretty darn good they made a little noise on the national level too.

Don: Yeah, yeah, our girls set the public school record in the 200 medley relay the High School State Meet and we did very well down at the Junior National Meet in Austin.

Peter: So since you coach both the high school team and the club team it must be a pretty good relationship between the two. Not everybody can pull that off?

Don: Yeah, it really is— it really affords us the ability to keep track of kids for the majority of the year and given that experience you know our year round swimmers get that experience of swimming high school and that team bonding part of it. I think that is an important part of their learning process especially we try to get them to look at college swimming and think further down the road.

Peter: How is the swimming talent in Michigan?

Don: It is really pretty good. Considering, we are not in the Sun Belt we have pretty good high school swimming a long with club swimming.

Peter: Pretty good facilities?

Don: Yeah, the facilities are starting to really pick up. Our facility is a little over 10-years-old, beautiful 50 meter facility. There is going to be a new 50 meter facility built within about 35 miles of your Hudsonville, Michigan. There are some really nice high school pools so really not too bad for having to build indoor pool.

Peter: Wow, no kidding. How did you wind up there in Holland?

Don: My wife is from Holland, Michigan so I guess love brought me here. I started out in the Old Aquatic facility in 1979 teaching swimming lessons and they needed an age group coach so and I needed the money.

Peter: So you have been a swim coach your whole life?

Don: Yeah, really I'm a track man. I came from track and field, taught swimming lessons midway through the 70's and just— but hey they are both aerobic sports, let's give it a try.

Peter: What you know what is something that you took from track and applied to swimming that has really worked?

Don: I guess the understanding I came from the 70's when track and field was really picking up on the interval training and some of the new philosophy as far as you know quality versus quantity and I think bringing that in I mean I was a distance runner so I still had the quantity part of it, but I understood that you still had to have some of the speed stuff in there too.

Peter: Would you say that philosophy has stayed throughout the years or have you changed?

Don: No, I would say we probably have a pretty good balance of both. I use stuff not being a swimming person to start with. I am pretty open to ideas so I have stolen a lot of things from a lot of other coaches. We will do some massive sets that I have gotten from Jon Urbanchek at Michigan and we will also do some sets I have heard from other coaches there you know really short stuff, quick/fast stuff.

Peter: Okay, so on your coaching you know entrance to the hall of fame you know application if they asked you, you know what is the set you are most proud of, the most creative set that you ever gave your swimmers or something that was typical of Don Kimble, what is it?

Don: Well, I don't know if I could take credit for it, but I love the sets. We do a set of 200's that actually Jon Urbanchek created. We are broke in 200's all out working on raised pace four or five of them and it is a maximum effort. I think that really gets the kids both physically and mentally.

Peter: Tell us about some of the swimmers that you have that have worked for you and that were going to start hearing more about?

Don: Well right now one of the ones at the forefront is Courtney Bartholomew. She has really made a big impact on our program both in and out of the water as an example to some of the other kids. We got some really good young kids coming up. Taylor Garcia, she finished third in the 100 back at juniors in Austin, finished in the top eight in 100 fly and we got some pretty decent guys coming up. We are trying to get our boy's program to catch up to our girl's program as far as Junior National and national appearances. We have some pretty good guys coming out of there; Kyle Doss who is a really good backstroker along with Gage Mitchell, a really good flyer.

Peter: Well coach, thank you very much for sharing some more about your team and your recent successes, congratulations.

Don: Sure.

Peter: Alright good luck in 2012.

Don: Thank you very much.

Peter: Alright, that is Coach Don Kimble joining us in the FINIS Monitor today from Holland, Michigan and that is it for today's show. I'm Peter Busch reminding you to keep your head down at the finish.